My elegiac face had betrayed me before I began talking to her,
“It is a pity you don’t like this place but with time you will feel at home.”
I fancy expressing sympathy towards other people but I detest the reverse. It was no surprise then that I lied to her that I actually loved the place when we both knew it was just courtesy.
The place was actually charming. It was a simple room of ancient architecture.(It is not really ancient architecture but my dislike for immediate post-colonial time sometimes influences my phraseology. Which is pathetic.)
I could tell it was originally made to accommodate one person but for the love of money or probably the impracticability of African families in enforcing Family Planning theories, it was now going to render justice to four of us.
Anyone would agree that the room is strategically located. It was directly opposite the lavatory and the scent and aroma that waded into the room every other moment that the door opened was a glorious one. At one moment we had to improvise and place a note on the lavatory door reminding every user that they would be doing the nation a favour by locking the door behind them.
Save for that aroma, the rest of the aeration would earn a thumbs up because it was on the last floor. In circumstances like these, the old adage of “the higher you go, the cooler it gets” always linger on the mind and in reality. A peep through the window gives you beautiful scenery. The sight of tree-tops swinging by the wind always brought one image to the mind – of big bubbly bums flapping as the blessed owner is making ecstatic strides.
Thus was the day time; lovely, memorable and full of revelry.
“The night,” pause for emphasis, “was something I do not enjoy sharing about. It attracted little vampire beings that cared less about our much deserved rest and more about involuntary donation of our blood.”
For fear of extraction of my much desired body juice, I had never donated blood in my life. These little beings go several months without food through a period I will call hibernation (for lack of a better word) and when they finally land on an unsuspecting newcomer, they take him and/or her on a compulsory tour of the much loathed kingdom of hell.
In the morning, the room would be littered with early morning curses instead of pleasantries.
From “damn it, I didn’t sleep at all” to “bloody suckers” you would think the room is occupied by visiting Indians – no offence but those guys curse a lot (from the movies).
